RSSFriday B.S.: It was Funnier (In My Head)
Mar 02
Humor Poop, Sense of Humor Comments Off
I lost my sense of humor in college. I’m not sure if at that exact moment, it fled from me to escape the abuse, or if I pulled it out at a bus stop somewhere and walked off without it. It was just one day, what used to be funny sounded cruel and what made other people laugh never elicited much of a tickle from me.
The only thing that never fails to put a huge smile on my face is poop jokes. And not just poop jokes, but stories about farting, Indian-stomach, toilet splash, Montezuma’s revenge, gaseous discharge, coffee-kicked-in, “may cause loose stool,” whole corn kernels, stool odor, Steatorrhea, hashmarks, Uncle Ted, second wave, and who cut the cheese. My friends know how to put a smile on my face; just bust out with the poop conversation.
But contrary to what that suggests, poop is one of the lowest forms of humor; it doesn’t really indicate a developed sense of humor. (Plus, you could too easily argue that it is driven more by embarrassment than hilarity.) No, deep down, I know my sense of humor is gone and my smile is on hiatus.
Last year, I endeavored to rediscover my sense of humor in writing. The theory worked like this: if I could rekindle humor in a written form of expression, then maybe it would extend itself naturally into other facets of my life. It’s hard to say where the experiment went wrong. Here’s some of the stuff I wrote on my blog then. See if it’s funny.
- June 28: “Not only do I not like pet smells, I do not like to smell like pet smells. Thus, we have stages of proximity that move from acceptable to unacceptable.
Stage 1) The pet lives in the home but is not in evidence
Stage 2) The pet is in the room
Stage 3) The pet has chosen me as the recliner of choice”
April 5: “I have this thing where I can only utilize one sense at a time. So if I am using my vision, all my other senses shut down, including my sense of empathy.”
February 16: “It was about as exciting as watching the same thirty seconds of When a Stranger Calls during every commercial break for the last three weeks. ‘Did you check the children?!?’ No fucker, go check them yourself.”
And
February 14: “I also recently discovered that if I lay on my bed and move as little as possible, I get the best cell reception on my phone anywhere outside of standing on the cell tower and speaking directly into the antenna.”
Hmm. Either it was just not funny to begin with, or there was no seepage (another great poop category) from the written humor into my otherwise daily existence.
Since the discovery that my sense of humor went AWOL, I have been torn about what to do about it. Comedy clubs and improv shows don’t work; I just think they’re a waste of money. One evening recently, I was watching stand-up on Comedy Central with a friend and after the first two comedians, she looks and me and says, “It’s okay to laugh if you think it’s funny.” Maybe there was something physically wrong with me; I couldn’t even choke up laughter without warming up first. (But I have no problem sticking my foot in my mouth without so much as a stretch.)
I’m not sure there really is any good solution that doesn’t involve analgesic medication. Practice? Okay, maybe. Drinking? Has potential. Adam Sandler movies? Not lately. I have always wanted to launch a full-scale investigation into the location of my sense of humor, but I just didn’t know where to begin. Sorry, I have to stop here because the bathroom beckons…well, come to think of it, maybe I do have a place to begin after all.
